Ford NASCAR Media Day Quotes Part II
February 4, 20105:06 PM
NASCAR Media Day got underway today with all of the drivers in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series taking questions from the media. Below are comments from the morning session with featured Ford drivers.
KASEY KAHNE – No. 9 Budweiser Ford Fusion –
WHAT IS YOUR OUTLOOK FOR 2010? “My outlook is good. I’m excited. I know the company has worked really hard to try to get us some better performance. The alliance with Roush Yates is something I look forward to and I think the engine here will be awesome compared to what I’ve had in the past. That’s really exciting, coming to Daytona and knowing you have a great shot at qualifying well, you have a great shot at running good – pushing cars around, you don’t need to be the guy getting pushed all the time, you can maybe do some pushing yourself. So it changes the whole restrictor plate type of racing for me. I think it’s gonna change it up, and, hopefully, I’ve been able to learn a lot in the past and it’ll give us a better chance on Saturday and Sunday over the next couple weeks. And then the rest of the season, I think we have a great team. The guys are all still together. We work well together. We enjoy working together. We had some fun during the off-season, and I think this whole change and merger really think can only help the 9 guys. As long as we can be prepared and as long as we can get the cars and the things that we need through Roush, I think we’ll be in good shape.”
HAVE YOU DRIVEN A NEW FORD YET? “I was in the Ford when we did a Goodyear tire test in Fontana right after the season was over. That was my first time with the Roush Yates Ford engine and I was really impressed with the torque and the horsepower off the corner, and then at the very end of the straightaway with how it ran. Those are things I get to look forward to going to Vegas and going back to California and Atlanta – some of the tracks I really enjoy. I’m excited. I’m excited to have a shot.”
CAN YOU TELL THE DIFFERENCE IN THE ENGINES YOU HAD PREVIOUSLY AND WHAT YOU HAVE NOW? “When I got into that car I was hoping because I’ve been saying it for years that I felt we were behind, and I was really hoping that I would be able to feel it and, no kidding, before I was in fourth gear I could already feel it, and then when I got to speed I could feel it as well. It was pretty neat. I was pretty excited just to know that it’s better because anytime you make gains it helps, so I feel like we made a gain.”
YOU’VE BEEN THINKING THAT FOR A LONG TIME AND HOPING YOU’RE RIGHT. “I’m just hoping that when Carl Edwards blows me off on a straightaway that I’m not just that slow, that it is the engine at times, and at times it’s not. At times it’s the car and your setup and things like that, but there have been plenty of times when I’ve thought – or Jimmie Johnson or Jeff Gordon at Texas. I smoked it through turns one and two on the start of the final Texas race – I smoked Jeff Gordon through there and he beat me into turn three. I could hear his pipes and could hear when he hit the throttle because it was right in my left ear, so to know all that and be like, ‘Man, I hope I can actually feel it when I get in the car,’ and then to feel it was a good sign.”
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO ACCOMPLISH MOST IN THE NEXT FIVE YEARS? “I just want to win. I love doing what I do. I love being a NASCAR driver and racing and having our own short track teams. I just want to keep getting better and keep giving everybody the opportunity to get better as well, and working with people and communicating.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT NASCAR LETTING THE DRIVERS POLICE THINGS AT THESE RESTRICTOR PLATE TRACKS AGAIN? “I don’t think it really affects me a whole lot. I think you’re gonna have to race how the other guys are racing, but at the same time you’ve got to finish 500 miles if you want a chance of winning the Daytona 500. So if guys get crazy and do stupid stuff, they probably won’t be in that wreck, but they’ll probably be in one later on. That’s just kind of the way it goes. Hopefully, everybody is smart enough to know, ‘Hey, NASCAR is putting it in our hands. Let’s respect each other and bump them as hard as we need to to get to the front, but don’t do it in spots where you’re gonna crash people and cause the big ones.’ Who knows? We have no idea how this is gonna work out.”
WAS IT HARDER AT TALLADEGA TO NOT BUMP DRAFT AND RACE THAT WAY AS OPPOSED TO THE WAY IT WAS BEFORE? “No, I thought Talladega was perfectly fine the way it was. What happened is the media made such a big deal out of you not being able to bump draft in the corners, and the whole purpose of that bump drafting thing was so people wouldn’t get hooked up and run two laps and get together. Myself and Denny Hamlin got hooked together in practice and we made the fastest lap by a long ways. You can’t do that all day or you’ll blow your engine up, so they were just trying to stop that, and then the media took it to another level with saying the racing was boring when it really had nothing to do with the bump drafting.”
DAVID RAGAN – No. 6 UPS Ford Fusion –
HOW ARE YOU LOOKING AT THE UPCOMING SEASON? “I feel like our UPS team is encouraged by the things that we’ve changed this off-season. I think, as a whole, the Roush Fenway organization is better prepared leading into this year. We looked at some of the things we did last year, some of our strong points, and built them up, and then looked at some things we really struggled with and went to work on trying to fix them. Donnie Wingo has come aboard and we’ve had a few months to talk and get our minds together on the same page. Our pit crew has been practicing, they’re very good, so I think on a piece of paper we’re very prepared and we’re ready to be here in Daytona. I’m glad it’s this week. We were getting a little antsy sitting around the house.”
YOU KNOW WHAT THE EXPECTATIONS ARE FOR YOU THIS YEAR. IS YOUR MINDSET THE SAME THIS SEASON AS IN THE PAST? “I think my mindset is the same as it’s been the last couple of years. We’ve got to perform. We’ve got to win races. We need to win some championships down the road. Certainly, championships take time, but it’s time to win some races and it’s time to be competitive once again like we were in ’07 and ’08. Last year was a disappointment and we just could not get on a roll. We could not make good things happen, so we went to work and we’ve changed some things on our race cars and the procedures that we do at the race shop and at the race track, so we’re very optimistic. The only way we can see if all of our off-season hard work did anything is unload and start going.”
ALL OF THE FORDS WERE OFF LAST YEAR, SO IS YOUR CONFIDENCE LEVEL STILL HIGH? IT WASN’T LIKE THE OTHER ROUSH FENWAY CARS WON A TON OF RACES LAST YEAR AND YOU STRUGGLED. “I feel like I’ve got a lot of confidence. We were able to win a couple Nationwide races last year, which certainly helped, and we can run strong at some tracks. We ran very good at a couple of tracks where we haven’t been very good at in the past. Sonoma was a place where we had a top-10 car and got in a wreck late in the race, but that was a big step in the right direction for having a good road course race. I finished in the top 10 at Watkins Glen in our Nationwide car, so there were some strong points – some things we were weak on in 2008 and we made better, but we were just never able to get our Cup car as fast as it should be. I think all of the teams realized we were off last year, and we went to work hard. All we can do is work as hard as we can and we’ll see if all of our hard work has paid off.”
DONNIE HAS WORKED WITH A LOT OF TOP DRIVERS. HOW HAS YOUR RELATIONSHIP GONE SO FAR? “Donnie is a racer. He reminds me a lot of Jimmy Fennig in that he is very familiar with the race cars and making calls. He’s a very seat-of-the-pants racer. He knows what to do just because he’s been here and done that for a number of years. Donnie and I have a good relationship. We’ve been able to talk just about everyday this off-season because I’ve been at the shop a lot, so it’s been good. I think he’ll bring a lot to the table. He’s very happy with the team that we have and, like I said, the biggest thing overall is as a company I think our cars are better and we’re more prepared on what to do. Now we can just unload and go to work, but it should be a lot of fun.”
ELLIOTT SADLER – No. 19 Stanley Ford Fusion –
HOW DO YOU FEEL THINGS HAVE GONE WITH THE MERGER? “I feel really good. I feel great about the merger. I feel great about being back in a Ford. I got one of the coolest phone calls last week. I got a call from Doug Yates telling me that he’s glad to be back on the same team and glad to have me driving his stuff again. I’m very excited about being a part of his program, especially for the Daytona 500, so he gave me a lot of confidence. The last two full seasons I was in a Ford we made the chase in one of them and finished 13th, I think, in the points in the other one. I run good in his stuff and I think I run good in the Ford brand, so there’s a lot of optimism going into this year, especially for the 500.”
DOUG PUTS A LOT OF EMPHASIS ON THIS RACE, SO YOU MUST FEEL YOU HAVE A SHOT AT THE POLE AND WINNING THE 500. “I think we’re gonna be very good and very fast. I told Kasey and AJ and all my teammates, ‘You don’t have to worry about the engine part of it. When it comes to Doug Yates to get ready for this race.’ We’re gonna have everything we need to be competitive. We’ve gotten a lot of help from the other people in the Ford camp. We’ve leaned on Todd Parrott some to get ready for the Daytona 500 because he’s got a world of knowledge as far as speedway program stuff is concerned, so I’ve been bending his ear a little bit. I’m very optimistic. I think we’re gonna get started on a good note and put our best foot forward down here. Over the last eight or nine years, in the Daytona 500, I have the best average finish of any driver, too, so I’ve got a lot of confidence at this track and we should be good this weekend.”
HOW MUCH DO YOU THINKOF LAST YEAR’S 500? “Everyday. I was 15 seconds away from winning the Daytona 500, and with where I’m at in my career and where I’m at as far as my age and how long I’ve been a part of racing, it would have definitely been a life-changer if it had rained 15 seconds earlier. I was heartbroken that night and it’s been heartbreaking the last calendar year – 365 days – to have to relive it. It was a tough experience to let that get away from me.”
CARL EDWARDS – No. 99 Aflac Ford Fusion –
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT TAKING PART IN THE WWE PROMOTION NEXT WEEK? “It’s gonna be great to host Monday Night Raw. That’ll be a blast. I saw Kyle (Busch) and Joey (Logano) a little bit about it. He said it was a lot of fun and he just said to go have fun with it. It’ll be cool to be able to kind of talk to all of those fans about the upcoming Daytona 500. That’s really what it’s all about, getting the word out that we’ve got an exciting race coming up.” DID THEY GIVE YOU ANY POINTERS? “Joey is pretty tall. He’s 6’2” or 6’3” and he said, ‘Man, those guys are huge.’ He said it’s just a lot of fun. It’s amazing the list of people that have done that and it’s just cool to be on that list. John Cena and I got to work together on a Gillette commercial and he’s a really nice guy. He comes to the races. He’s a huge racing fan. Ric Flair is a huge race fan, so it’s just cool to be able to go out and see how they do their business.”
ANY IDEA WHAT THEY’LL LET YOU DO AFTER LAST YEAR? “Yeah, if I can hurt myself playing Frisbee, I’m sure off the top rope I could do something really bad. We’ll have fun with it, though. We’ll see what happens. I’ve never been in a ring like that, so it’ll be kind of neat to do.”
WHAT ABOUT DENNY’S INJURY. DO YOU THINK TEAMS WILL KEEP DRIVERS FROM ACTIVITIES LIKE THAT? “I’ve got to plug my sponsor here because what Aflac does is pays you cash when something unexpected happens, and I’ve said that for years and talked about it, but I broke my foot playing a game of Frisbee. We were just playing Frisbee and here I am with broken bones in my foot, and that’s the kind of unexpected stuff that no one can really guard against. I don’t know how Denny messed up his knee exactly, but I heard he was playing basketball. If you can’t play basketball or you can’t throw a Frisbee, I mean what are you gonna do? Maybe we’d need to race more often, I guess. I rode a motorcycle to where I was playing Frisbee and you have way more danger of getting hurt at that, but I think that’s just life. Things happen in life and that’s just the way it is.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL GOING INTO THIS SEASON?"Last year, we came in with the same expectation that a lot of you guys had of our performance. We thought we were gonna win 10 races, win the championship, it’s gonna be great and then we didn’t. Everyone on our team, myself, everyone has to be able to look at ourselves and say, ‘What can we do to be better,’ and my guys have been working very hard. We’ve got a really great pit crew and that’s gonna be huge. Our engineering has been working hard and hopefully we’ll be better there, but we’ve just got to go do it. Two thousand nine is over, it’s done. Now we’ve got to go be champions in 2010.”
IS IT BETTER TO BE IN THIS POSITION AS OPPOSED TO THE SPOTLIGHT? “I’ve been on both ends. I’ve had people say, ‘He’s gonna be the champion, it’s done.’ And then I’ve had people not expect anything. That really doesn’t make a difference. That’s not what defines how we’re gonna perform. I have an inner drive and expectation that’s always the same.”
IS IT GOOD FOR A TEAM TO GO THROUGH SOMETHING LIKE THAT AND REGROUP? “It’s reality. This sport is very, very tough. It’s reality for everybody but Jimmie. They’ve somehow been able to stay on top, but in 2005 we ran really well; 2006 was terrible; 2007 was OK; 2008 was great; and 2009 we made the chase, which is a pretty big accomplishment, but it just reminds you – it’s like you guys, no matter how great of a story you write, no matter how much work you put into it, sometimes there are things you just can’t control and you’ve got to put those things behind you and just keep going.”
WHAT WOULD IT MEAN TO WIN THE DAYTONA 500? “To win the Daytona 500 would be something you can’t take off your resume. It’s there. You did it. You won the race. For me, it wouldn’t be as big as winning the championship, but no matter what happened the rest of the year if we were to win the 500, I could hang my hat on that and say, ‘That was OK. That was a good accomplishment.’”
WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO WIN THE 500? “To win the 500, to me, you’ve got to have a great handling race car. You’ve got to have a fast race car. You really have to be lucky. Matt Kenseth won it last year. He’s a great driver. He had a great race car, and on that last caution I was on his bumper, I didn’t make it through the wreck and he did, so if the roles would have been reversed, he would have been out. So that luck is a huge part of it. Some people might call it fate here. It’s a pretty special race.”
HOW ARE YOU MENTORING THE YOUNGER GUYS ON YOUR TEAM? “I talk to Colin quite a bit and Ricky a little bit, but anytime those guys come to me and ask anything I try to help them. As fast as they are, Colin has helped me a ton with my road racing, and Ricky is fast. He was on the pole at Iowa and I was asking him for help then, so they’re really good teammates to have and I think very shortly they will be very fast.”
WHAT DRIVERS DID YOU LOOK UP TO AS A KID? “When I was coming up as a kid, Kenny Schrader was probably the driver I watched the most. Dale Earnhardt a little bit and Geoff Bodine a little bit, but, really, I was a the local race track. I paid attention to those guys. NASCAR was just a group of guys I had never been around and I had never seen the racing first-hand, so it was less tangible. The local racers are the guys I paid attention to.”
YOU’VE SAID YOUR GOAL THIS YEAR IS TO WIN THE TITLE IN NATIONWIDE AND CUP. IS THAT WHAT’S MOTIVATING YOU? “If a couple of things would have gone differently in 2008, we would have won both championships. I was close enough to know that it could be done and that’s really kind of in the back of my mind as the ultimate goal to win both of them in one year. That would be a really cool banquet season. That would be a lot of fun. This will be my sixth year, I think, running full-time in both of them and I just love the competition. The chance to do that, if it were to happen, would be huge.”
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